RAW and JPG files

That's rather a decent sensor, so you can get a reasonable postage stamp image with enough work ... but as others have said, it's a brutal exposure. One presumes that you have good exposures and that this was just an experiment ... EDIT: I see that this was just the first exposure after you had been at a sports event. Fair enough. By the way, this was all LR5 and the ORF.

brycesteiner wrote:

I did a food shoot not long ago and it went very well. This was my first test shots I was trying out at the restaurant. I have two files here. The picture of the nachos was very underexposed. I mainly am a JPG shooter, somtimes raw, but I thought this would be a good time to try out how good RAW really can pull detail out of severely underexposed images. I found out I'm not up to par on doing this.

This is the JPG +5.5 exposure compensation

RAW file +5.5 exposure and auto correct.

I got a lot more detail out of the jpg, especially out of the shadow areas, than I could out of the RAW file.

I guess I really don't know what I'm doing. RAW's are always supposed to have more information.

The original files are here if you want to give it a go and help me do better with RAW.

Again, this was just a test with my RAW skills, and the pictures used are really good and the customer loved the food pictures. I'll see about uploading them a little later.

I am amazed at what many of you have come up with on a picture that was nearly black. I'm also very intrigued as to how anyone could think the sensor in m4/3 is lousy. I'm not sure if this is with the E-m1 or the E-M5 as I was using both.

My problem is still the same. I put in the same or similar settings that Bob said into Aperture and I am coming up with nothing like that. In fact, it's worse than what I uploaded before. I'm becoming convinced that Aperture's RAW developer is crap. I downloaded Olympus Preview and came up with much better results.

I'm now trying to download a trial of Lightroom and Adobe is making me sign in. To see if I get different results. I attempt to and it says I already have an account. I go sign in and it says I don't have an account. Another screen is telling me the password must be reset and an email is in my inbox. Well, I've been waiting for nearly an hour and none has been sent. I checked the spam folder too. Adobe must hate me......

So, While I am waiting for Adobe, what is the best RAW processor out there? PC or Mac is fine.

My problem is still the same. I put in the same or similar settings that Bob said into Aperture and I am coming up with nothing like that. In fact, it's worse than what I uploaded before.

May be you should give a more detailed description of how you worked on the file, may be even with screenshots. That would help to identify any possible mistakes you are making. Aperture is not a crаррy converter, it may not be the best there is, but it's adequate for most purposes.

Here are some of the pictures that were used. All but one are straight from the camera other than being resized. No retouching. I was very happy with the results. Something could probably have been better but the goal was to create appealing food for a deep fried restaurant and I think we did that.

So, While I am waiting for Adobe, what is the best RAW processor out there? PC or Mac is fine.

While on the free trial bandwagon, try Silkypix , weird but interesting, many features that others don't have. I had some colour problems with it, blues turning to purple.

My favourite has switched from that to AfterShot Pro as my one to use now, OK for E-M5 but so slow to update and E-M1 not there yet. It was Bibble and is exceptionally fast to convert, results seem quite accurate in colours etc. Has plug-ins for some film simulations.

My problem is still the same. I put in the same or similar settings that Bob said into Aperture and I am coming up with nothing like that. In fact, it's worse than what I uploaded before.

May be you should give a more detailed description of how you worked on the file, may be even with screenshots. That would help to identify any possible mistakes you are making. Aperture is not a crаррy converter, it may not be the best there is, but it's adequate for most purposes.

Vlad

Well first I imported the ORF file. Then used the setting exposure to go to +5. Above 2 it just appears to work like contrast instead of exposure.

I then lifted all the shadows to 100%.

I tried other things too, but nothing came out of the shadows like it did in LR. See here:

Here are some of the pictures that were used. All but one are straight from the camera other than being resized. No retouching. I was very happy with the results. Something could probably have been better but the goal was to create appealing food for a deep fried restaurant and I think we did that.

My problem is still the same. I put in the same or similar settings that Bob said into Aperture and I am coming up with nothing like that. In fact, it's worse than what I uploaded before. I'm becoming convinced that Aperture's RAW developer is crap.

I'm no expert on Aperture - once i typed in higher exposures on that slider AND knocked the black point down it stared to look much more reasonable.

The blue channel histogram really wanted to stay at the left edge of the scale

This may be obvious, but i wanted to play with it. I also have Aperture so i am interested in learning more PP specific to that.

Why not just shoot RAW only if you are using JPG for an in-camera preview only since RAW displays just fine?

The RAW embedded jpeg (you never see the RAW itself) is of lower resolution than the usual in-camera jpeg, so if checking for critical focus/shake/blur then it needs to be the jpeg at something like 10x or 14x. That 's worse than pixel peeping I know, but it delivers.

My favourite has switched from that to AfterShot Pro as my one to use now, OK for E-M5 but so slow to update and E-M1 not there yet. It was Bibble and is exceptionally fast to convert, results seem quite accurate in colours etc. Has plug-ins for some film simulations.

Regards...... Guy

Guy,

I probably asked you this before, is there any difference between using AfterShot Pro and PaintShop Pro for the RAW conversions? Thanks

My favourite has switched from that to AfterShot Pro as my one to use now, OK for E-M5 but so slow to update and E-M1 not there yet. It was Bibble and is exceptionally fast to convert, results seem quite accurate in colours etc. Has plug-ins for some film simulations.

Regards...... Guy

Guy,

I probably asked you this before, is there any difference between using AfterShot Pro and PaintShop Pro for the RAW conversions? Thanks

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Bob Carstens

AfterShot Pro seems to do the better job with more controls available. PSPX6 seems good enough for everyday shots, PSPX5 was OK as well but I found PSPX4 terrible.

AfterShot Pro was $29.99 at some silly sale time so got it, but had to wait a looooong time until they updated for E-PL5/E-M5, the E-M10 and E-M1 may take another year the way their glacier gallops along.

Harder for me to drive than Silkypix but slowly getting the hang of it, seems to give more accurate colours than Silkypix. A dumb version of Noise Ninja is built in plus there's a RAW noise reduction as well, but I tend to tread lightly with noise reduction, hardly using it at all. Extremely quick at conversion, no chance to go get a coffee while it runs a batch.

I recently paid for my updates to Qimage Ultimate and that now seems to have developed into a near full blown printer, RAW converter, edit and image management program so need to also have a compare with what it can do, I like the improved sharpening method that Qimage uses.

Yesterday the local Sydney newspaper in their photography column was full of praise for DxO as being the best thing in the universe, maybe so but I don't need that level of perfection for my stuff. "It's a Miracle" on 9th March at this address http://dpexpert.com.au/ for the source article.